Healia and the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the nation’s oldest and largest independent association for more than 67,000 physicians-in-training, announced this morning that AMSA medical students and interns/residents are answering the public's online health questions for free on Healia Communities. Trained medical students will answer common health questions anytime and at no cost to consumers.

According to the Pew Internet&American Life Project, between 75% and 80% of American Internet users have looked for health information online.

There are many online Q&A websites but very few of them are appropriate for answering health questions because their members are seldom qualified health professionals. In contrast, the health Q&A service on Healia Communities shows the profiles of those who have posted answers to questions; all medical students or interns/residents have been verified by AMSA.

The free online health Q&A service is available immediately. Sign up and submit your health questions at Healia Communities.

See the full press release about this new health Q&A service.

More than 50 new Healia Health Information Guides have just been launched. The Health Guides are original, consumer-friendly health information guides that provide trusted information about common health topics. Each Health Guide, written by a medical writer and reviewed by a physician, provides essential information about symptoms, causes, diagnosis, treatment, and risk factors and prevention.

Available Health Information Guides include the following topics:

• Acid Reflux
• Alcoholism
• Allergies
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Anemia
• Anxiety
• Asthma
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Autoimmune Diseases
• Back Pain
• Breast Cancer
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
• Celiac Disease
• Chickenpox
• Childhood Vaccines
• Chlamydia
• Dementia
• Depression
• Ear Infection
• Excessive Sleepiness
• Fibromyalgia
• Genital Herpes
• Genital Warts
• Graves' Disease
• Heart Disease
• Heart Palpitations
• Hepatitis B
• High Blood Pressure
• High Cholesterol
• Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Lupus
• Lyme Disease
• Menopause
• Menstruation
• Migraine
• Mono
• Obesity / Overweight
• Osteoarthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Pink Eye
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Pregnancy
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Ringworm
• Salmonella
• Sinusitis
• Stress Management
• Tuberculosis
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Uncontrolled Asthma
• Vaccines
• Weight Management

Today, Healia kicks off the Healia Points Program to recognize and reward Healia Communities members who are active contributors and who are helpful to other Community members. The goal of the Healia Points Program is to encourage Healia Communities members to help each other make the best health decisions.

Members receive Healia Points when they are active and contribute positively to the community. Additional points are awarded if a member's comments/answers are rated highly among other members. Each week, members who have earned the highest number of Healia Points for the previous week are recognized on the site as Top Contributors.

Points are awarded for certain activities including filling out your profile, posting a journal, and asking and answering questions. The number of points varies by the activity. The cumulative number of Healia Points is shown in the upper right corner when logged in and is also shown in conjunction with the member profile.

The Healia Points Program is launching with a special offer from Meredith Corporation, Healia’s parent company. Beginning May 11, 2008, the week’s five “Top Contributors” who have earned the most points during the previous week will receive a free annual subscription of their choice of either Ladies Home Journal, MORE, or Fitness Magazine. Winners may also give their free subscription to someone else as a gift. 

Healia Points Healia Communities online health community

 

Today, we are delighted to announce the launch of Healia Communities, a free online health community that enables people to get personal support for their health decisions from peers and experienced health professionals.

Healia Communities helps you make better health decisions by allowing you to:

• Share your health knowledge, experiences, and favorite resources
• Connect with people like yourself who’ve experienced your situation
• Ask questions of the community, your peers, and health professionals

After more than one year in development, we are eager to offer this novel online health community to you and welcome your feedback. In the next several months, we will be adding additional features and functionality to both our search engine and the new online health community, in order for you to make better health decisions.

Head to Healia Communities to register and join one of our 200+ health communities including allergies, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, breast cancer, diabetes type 2, heart disease, and weight management.

Visit us at http://communities.healia.com to be part of the community!

 

Healia Communities health communities health support groups

When researching heart disease on the Web, it can sometimes be difficult to find trusted and timely information in an accessible format. This is why Healia has compiled health disease information into one resource, the Healia Health Guide: Heart Disease. This series of articles about heart disease is sponsored by the American Heart Association. Whether you have been recently diagnosed with heart disease, have had heart disease for some time and have a question, or are researching information for a friend or loved one--the Healia Health Guide: Heart Disease can help you. Some of the topics in the Health Guide include:

• What is heart disease?
• What treatments are available for heart disease?
• What are the symptoms of heart disease?
• What to ask your doctor about heart disease
• Recent developments in heart disease
• Tips for caregivers of people with heart disease 

Visit the Healia Health Guide: Heart Disease to learn more.

heart disease American Heart Association heart health

Re-energize your diet and nutrition, exercise and fitness resolutions by testing your health knowledge. We’re excited to introduce a new health quiz with 20 great questions on nutrition and fitness. Answer questions, earn points, and see how your answers compare with others.

 

Click on the image to test your nutrition and fitness knowledge or go to http://quiz.healia.com/.

Good luck!

nutrition quiz fitness quiz health quiz

Today in Washington, D.C., Tom Eng proudly accepted the prestigious Tibbetts Award on behalf of Healia for accomplishments in technology innovation and economic impact.

 

Healia is one of 55 companies in the U.S. to receive the Tibbetts Award and was selected from more than 4,000 companies that receive contract and grants under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program each year.

 

To read more visit Healia.

 

Tibbetts Awards Healia SBIR

A couple of weeks ago we said farewell to our summer interns, as they headed back to school. It was hard to let them go, because over the course of the summer we accomplished so much - the release of PubMed/Medline and Clinical Trials Search, the start of The Healia Health Blog and Healia Links, and the launch of our Facebook application: The Healia Health Challenge. It goes without saying we had an awesome group of interns!

 

But don't think we've slowed down. This month several new folks will be joining our team. That's right - new faces, fresh initiatives, and innovative products - Healia momentum.

 

Healia health search

We just launched two new search engine tools – Healia PubMed/Medline Search and Clinical Trials Search.

Healia PubMed/Medline Search is specifically designed to help consumers retrieve abstracts of scientific articles published in biomedical journals in a user-friendly way. It searches the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) PubMed/Medline dataset, which includes more than 17 million abstracts and citations from approximately 5,000 biomedical journals published in the United States and worldwide since the 1950s.

The Healia Clinical Trials Search retrieves clinical trials information from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) ClinicalTrials.gov dataset, which includes federally and privately supported studies on a wide range of diseases and conditions. One of the unique capabilities of the Healia Clinical Trials Search is the ability to restrict searches by geography and to map locations of study sites.

 

Dr. Tom Eng, President and Founder:

At Healia, we are constantly looking for ways to make complex health information much more accessible and relevant to the average consumer

 

Visit www.healia.com to try out our new search tools.

 

PubMed Medline Clinical Trials

We at Healia have just launched a new Facebook health application: The Healia Health Challenge. This fast-paced quiz is a fun way to test your health smarts. It starts you off at the pre-med level, and top-scoring players are promoted to Chief of Medicine.

We've definitely had a lot of fun developing this application. Writing the questions and answers has been an educational process...and quite entertaining, as well! The topics we've unearthed have sparked several lunchtime conversations here at the office.

If you have a Facebook profile, you can add the Healia Health Challenge by visiting its About page. If you're not on Facebook, you'll be prompted to sign up for an account.

We think you’ll have as much fun with this application as we’ve had creating it, and we’re curious to hear your feedback. Feel free to leave comments on this post and let us know what you think!


health Facebook application Healia Health Challenge health quiz